<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Wretched by LadyHeliotrope</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25804168">Wretched</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHeliotrope/pseuds/LadyHeliotrope'>LadyHeliotrope</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adult Hermione Granger, Angst with a Happy Ending, Captivity, Darkness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, F/M, Falling In Love, Falling in Love at the End of the World, Good Severus Snape, Hermione Granger-centric, Isolation, Post-Second War with Voldemort, Prison, Prisoner of War, Severus Snape Has a Heart, Severus Snape Lives, Starvation</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-08-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 10:47:19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,029</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25804168</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHeliotrope/pseuds/LadyHeliotrope</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt from NaomiJameston: "SSHG retelling of Eros and Psyche. HG doesn't recognize SS voice due to Nagini damage. Only together in darkness. RW and/or HP convince her to cast Lumos. SS leaves, ashamed. HG has to win him back."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hermione Granger/Severus Snape</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>60</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hearts and Cauldrons Discord Members, Severus Snape Lives!</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/NaomiJameston/gifts">NaomiJameston</a>.</li>



    </ul><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It could always be worse.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Darkness. <em>It could always be worse</em>, she told herself after crawling on her hands and needs around the room, measuring in approximations of meters. She could be dead. She could be actively tortured with the Cruciatus curse. She could be served up as a delectation for the victorious Death-Eaters.</p><p>Instead, she was just forgotten in the obscurity.</p><p>The endless night of the dungeon was, at first, a curse. She had to feel her way around, never completely sure whether there was going to be some pit into which she was going to slip.</p><p>But soon she had a better sense of her circumstances - the room was squarish, perhaps a hundred square meters in area, with no doors or windows or other apertures. The walls were smooth, almost like a bathtub. There was a drain near the corner, and this was where she performed her less dignified acts of survival.</p><p><em>It could always be worse, </em>she told herself time and time again.</p><p>At least someone had been so kind as to leave her a jug of water. Though how long it would last, she was not sure.</p><p>She prayed daily for a miracle, where Ron or Neville would come and find her, but she knew better than to believe that. Voldemort had killed Harry in front of her very eyes, and after that, her world had crumbled. </p><p><em>But it always could be worse</em>, she kept the mantra going. <em>At least my parents are safely in Australia. </em></p><p>On the other hand, though, this meant there was probably <em> no one  </em>who cared much that she was gone.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Someone gives her water.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The slamming of a door above her explained a lot of things, such as why she hadn’t been able to find an exit to her prison.</p><p>
  <em>“I can’t... I can’t...I can’t...” </em>
</p><p>A hoarse male voice collapsed above her, perhaps two and a half meters away.</p><p>She knew very well that he could just as easily make her situation worse as he could make it better, but her stomach’s involuntary growling made the choice for her.</p><p>“Who’s there?” He stood up in an instant, sounding like he had sprung up like a coiled spring. His voice was rough, like the end of a sawed off piece of wood, and deep.</p><p>“Just a so-called b-blood traitor.” She stuttered over the words, hating the lie. But she knew very well that she likely was depending on the sympathy of a Death Eater, and that being a Muggle Born was more a liability than not.</p><p>A wand-light suddenly shone directly at her. She hissed and shied away from the light like a spooked horse, closing her eyes against the onslaught.</p><p>Thankfully it was just for a moment, and then the darkness returned again.</p><p>“How long... have you been here?” The raspy, harsh edged voice sounded somewhat familiar, and she was reminded of coffee grounds. But she couldn’t picture its owner. Maybe a member of the Order?</p><p>Perhaps her luck was turning.</p><p>“I estimate a week,” Hermione said with trembling lips. “I’m almost out of water, and I don’t have any food.”</p><p>There was a rummaging noise as the man seemed to ransack his pockets. Then a clatter as something fell near her.</p><p>“This is...all I have for the moment,” the man answered with labored breaths, and she crept to where she’d heard the object.</p><p>It was a chocolate bar. Not an anemic petite one; it was robust and delicious and only a couple squares had been taken from its foil-wrapped corner.</p><p>“Do you have...a container?” the man asked, and Hermione replied in the affirmative. “Toss it...up to me.”</p><p>“It’s glass.”</p><p>“Fine.” She heard him cast a spell, then he instructed again, patiently, “Toss it up ...to me.”</p><p>She did, and was satisfied to hear it land with a bouncy thump.</p><p>“I’m transfiguring it to rubber,” he stated, “and refilling it.”</p><p>He returned it to her unceremoniously, knocking it over the edge, but the transformation held, so it did not smash.</p><p>“I’ll be back...when I can.” He sounded weary, as if he was not pleased at the idea. “Don’t talk to anyone. Pretend to be dying if anyone else comes here.”</p><p>Without a further word, he stomped away, and Hermione sipped her fresh clean water with relief.</p><p>Perhaps she would survive this.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He brings her a cabbage pie.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She tried not to sleep too much so that her sleep cycle would continue to help her keep track of time. She marked time by ripping a hair out every time she woke up, and she tied them into little bundles of seven to mark the weeks.</p><p>So it was after another two sleep cycles that the man returned, and he passed down a whole cabbage pie to her via levitating spell.</p><p>“Thank you,” she murmured, setting into it with her fingers before realizing there was a fork thoughtfully placed on it.</p><p>“Eat what you can...but I don’t want to... leave the dish,” the man said, and Hermione had the odd sensation of imagining her austere savior with a pink gingham baking apron bedecked in ruffles.</p><p>She laughed aloud, though she recognized it was the delirium caused by hunger that caused the ridiculous image to come to mind.</p><p>“So they don’t know you’ve been here,” Hermione answered through a full mouth. At least she’d thought about this eventuality, and she’d been digging out a secret hiding-place beneath a loose cobblestone in the floor. She swallowed and asked, “You wouldn’t happen to have a bit of wax paper or something like that?”</p><p>“All I have... is the bag the pie came in,” he answered, and it sounded like he was settling down to sit. “Would that suit?”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>He didn’t bother to levitate it, instead just letting it float down from his hand.</p><p>“Perfect.”  She crawled across the floor until she found it, and then carefully ripped the edges until it was the right size for her little hiding-hole. “What about a napkin?”</p><p>“Just a... handkerchief.”</p><p>She heard him shift and rummage, then nothing.</p><p>“Do you mind?” she asked, and he sounded a bit annoyed.</p><p>“It’s...down there, Granger.”</p><p>The way he said her name made her stop in her tracks.</p><p>
  <em>Was this poisoned?</em>
</p><p>She almost spit it out, but then realized that if he wished her ill, there were many easier ways to kill a woman who was stuck in a dark dungeon, far away from any witness’ eyes.</p><p>What a waste of a good poison, it would be, she supposed.</p><p>“You know me,” was all she said, and the voice wheezily chuckled.</p><p>“Your face is known... to most of wizardkind, girl. Honestly... it is a <em>grotesque</em> oversight on someone’s part... that you ended up here... and not somewhere…rather worse.”</p><p>He coughed. It was clear that the man did not usually talk this much. He was struggling to get through this conversation. “Though obviously... I have some interest in seeing... that you survive.”</p><p>“And what interest is that?” Hermione asked between another large bite of pie. She was upset that her stomach was already beginning to feel full, she knew it wasn’t possible that she’d eaten nearly enough…</p><p>He went so quiet, she wasn’t sure if he was still there.</p><p>“I have to go,” was all he said, “Take what you want...I’ll take the plate.”</p><p>“Thank you so much,” she murmured, carefully scooping the contents of the pie onto the flattened paper bag, then his spell jerked the dish out of her hand and sent it back up to him.</p><p>“I want you <em>alive...</em>at the end of this, Granger,” the man said, the raspy edge of his tone grating her ears as it reverberated throughout the room. “Believe me...it would be easier otherwise.”</p><p>She didn’t know what to say to that, but felt sad as he slowly trod up the short staircase and shut the door carefully behind him.</p><p>It did not escape her notice that the man had left behind his handkerchief. Once her remaining pie had been stowed away, she felt around her dungeon until she found it.</p><p>The handkerchief was soft linen. It smelled clean, and Hermione gently dabbed some of her precious water on it in order to clean herself.</p><p>As she did so, she noticed there was a tiny cross-stitched letter <em>S </em>in one corner.</p><p>It was a clue to the mystery, but a very small one indeed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>He gives her a name to call him.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">The darkness felt less oppressive than ever with the knowledge that her mysterious benefactor would be returning. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">This time it was just a single sleep cycle later. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Granger?” His raspy voice was so welcome, she was almost overjoyed to hear him. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Yes, I’m here,” she called in a stage whisper, “please, could you come down here, somehow?”</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“I’ll...try.” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">It was a strange thing; she didn’t imagine that a man could fall such a distance without getting hurt, but somehow he landed without incident. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“What do you need?” he asked, barely audible. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">She gestured to her grimy body. “Would it be possible to ask for a scourgify or three?” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">He answered through his actions; it felt like being licked by Fang, with warm wetness running up and down her body. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Much better,” she announced with a grimace, permitting him the grace of silence. “Would you light a lumos? I’d like to see the face of my benefactor.”</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">He seemed bemused. “You don’t... realize...”</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">Then he stopped, and seemed to swallow hard. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“You don’t realize... how dangerous it is... for me to be here... If the Dark Lord... has the opportunity ... to look into your... memories... knowing my... identity... could prove a disaster.</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“No,” he finished with resolve, “this is... all I can permit.” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“I understand,” Hermione said, closing her eyes and trying to ignore the pangs of tears in the corners of her eyes. “Safety.” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“In...deed.” His voice seemed fatigued, so she picked up her jug of water and placed it in his hands, a simple wordless request.</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Yes,” was all he said at first, and she heard the slow sound of aguamenti filling her jug. “There,” he uttered once done, and she heard him tap a small vial into it. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“What’s that?” Hermione did not worry about his poisoning her again; he clearly had no interest in this. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Nutrition... potion....” he wheezed, then placed the jug on the ground again. “Can’t give.... too much .... food.”</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">Hermione chuckled ruefully. “Lest I spoil my neglected appearance.”</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">She could feel the heat of his glare despite the absence of light. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Safety,” the man said with simplicity. Hermione responded with a sigh.</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“You’re right to think of that,” she murmured, sitting and feeling sulky. “Safety.” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Giving a prisoner water is... within the bounds... of what might be excused.” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“What happens if they find out you helped me?” she asked unnecessarily, knowing what the probable answer would be. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Death.” The response was simple and uncomplicated. “I do not have... much to live for... in general... but I would prefer... to die at... the will of the gods... not of other men.” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Understandable.” Hermione felt a pang of sadness. So many questions swam through her mind, she couldn’t choose which she should ask. She could tell he was moving to leave, and she felt the pressure of curiosity building up inside her, a dam waiting to burst. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">She settled on the simplest thing, for it was the easiest.</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“You have me at a disadvantage. What could I call you?” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">He seemed amused by the question; the silence suggested a smile. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Salazar,” he offered, beginning to walk away from her. “Not that... I flatter myself to be his equal.”</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“It’s a name that would not compromise your identity. It’s a name any Slytherin might choose.” </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Mm </span>
  <span class="s3">hm</span>
  <span class="s2">.”</span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">She was satisfied at least to have something to call him. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">“Be careful,” Hermione said, hearing the fabric of his robes rustle, and then she suddenly heard him land softly on the ledge above her. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">She wasn’t sure how he was doing this, barring the ability of flight. But then again, maybe he knew something she didn’t. </span>
</p><p class="p3"> </p><p class="p2">
  <span class="s2">There was a pause as if the trip up had winded him somehow, and she almost forgot what she’d said when he finally answered. “I’ll... try.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I am your fanfic writer, and I know just what to write<br/>Another multichapter, to keep you up all night<br/>Today, I am excited, today I've lit the fuse,<br/>But I drop my dream and lose my steam if I get no reviews</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>